Catching Fog

When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

And that day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”

He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’ ”

Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” (John 5:6-14)

Jesus asked a disabled man a simple yes or no question. But instead of answering Jesus’ question, he told Jesus why he couldn’t get healed.

Too often we respond to God exactly the same way: rather than saying yes to him, we explain to God why what we most need is impossible to get.

Remarkably, Jesus did not wait for the poor man to say the right thing in the right way before he would help him—any more than he expected anything from the man at all. Jesus knew what the man really needed. Even if the man didn’t understand it himself.

Only after healing the man did Jesus warn him to stop sinning. Jesus’ intervention was not dependent upon the man’s repentance, but rather upon his need. And Jesus criticized the Pharisees for imagining that doing the right thing should be allowed to stand in the way of doing another right thing. Keeping the Sabbath was good; but using it as an excuse to let suffering continue was inexcusable. The religious establishment had allowed concern with legalities to obscure the reason the legalities existed: love. They had missed the whole point to the commandments and saw them as an end in themselves, rather than what they were: a means to an end. The means to doing the loving thing.

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He entered Jericho and was passing through. There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man. So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since He was about to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, because today I must stay at your house.”

So he quickly came down and welcomed Him joyfully. All who saw it began to complain, “He’s gone to lodge with a sinful man!”

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord! And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much!”

“Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)

Jesus did not worry about looking good. Jesus was concerned only with doing good: with loving his neighbor as himself. Sometimes that neighbor was a genuinely evil person, like a tax collector. A tax collector gained his job by bidding for it from the Roman government. Whoever promised the Romans the most money got the contract for the district or town. His pay came from whatever he could get above that promised amount. So tax collectors got rich by ripping off their neighbors. No one liked them. Their greed, their rapaciousness, their essential graft and legalized embezzlement branded them as sinners in the extreme.

It was such a man, and those like him, that Jesus sought out and spent most of his time with. When Jesus saw Zacchaeus in the tree, Jesus did not tell him to give up his line of work. He did not tell him to change his lifestyle or to give back the money he had stolen. And yet Zacchaeus did just that: he accepted Jesus’ invitation to lodge in his house and responded by changing his life.

And that’s the way it works for you today: you can’t have God take up residence with you without it having profound implications. You’ll never be the same afterwards, any more than Zacchaeus could be the same after having Jesus in his home. Meeting Jesus changes everything.

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Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

So Jesus told them this story: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.” (Luke 15:1-10 NLT)

Jesus did not worry about what the neighbors thought. Instead, he simply did what was best for them. Reaching out to the sinners of the world was what was best for those sinners—and it was also best for those nosey neighbors who always criticized him for doing the loving thing instead of the correct thing.

In Jesus’ day, most of the Jewish people were farmers, raisers of sheep or cattle, or fishers. The parables he told, the word pictures he painted, were designed to make sense to such an audience. So he used the way shepherds cared about their lost sheep to illustrate how much God cared about lost people.

The word “Pharisee” means “separated ones.” They believed in separating themselves from sinners, because they thought God hated sinners. Jesus wanted the Pharisees to understand that rather than hating sinners, God loved them and he compared them to lost precious things, hoping to get them to understand how precious every human being was.

It gives us insight into the character of Jesus to note that he made sinners comfortable and enraged the righteous. How many sinners feel comfortable hanging out with most Christians? Perhaps we’re not as much like Jesus as we like to imagine.

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He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.”

The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him. (Luke 13:10-17)

Would you rather suffer for eighteen years and then get healed miraculously or never suffer at all? An unnamed woman was not given that choice. She merely suffered, so that Jesus could heal her and teach one of Israel’s religious leaders something. For eighteen years, that woman had doubtless prayed for healing. Most likely, so had her family and friends. For eighteen years it seemed like God was ignoring all their pleas.

But God wasn’t telling her or her family or her friends “no.” He had answered her prayer in the affirmative. But it took awhile for her to experience it. The answer arrived in the right place at exactly the right time. It happened both in answer to her prayers, as well as to serve as a teaching moment for a man who had lost perspective. More than one person, perhaps, was healed by what happened.

While Jesus was teaching, he took notice of her suffering. She had not requested that Jesus aid her. But he knew what she had asked God to do. So Jesus simply called her over and gave her what she wanted more than anything.

Her response was to glorify God. The response of the synagogue ruler was something else entirely: he criticized what Jesus had done. Jesus reacted by pointing out the inconsistency in the ruler’s thinking: the law allowed for the care of animals on the Sabbath. Weren’t human beings of greater worth?

In his concern with doing the legal thing, the synagogue ruler had lost sight of the right thing. He’d forgotten the purpose for the laws: to make life better for human beings. If the laws stood in the way of that, then perhaps the laws were wrong—or at least being misunderstood and wrongly applied.

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“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:27-36)

In exchange for random acts of violence, Jesus expected targeted acts of kindness. Jesus asked people to act contrary to their natures, even contrary to what seemed like good sense. Rather than responding in kind to the people around us, he told people to respond always with good, no matter how badly they were treated.

It is natural to return evil for evil and good for good. It is unnatural to do good for those who do us wrong. Jesus argued that genuine righteousness cannot be dependent upon others. Returning kindness for kindness is quite ordinary. Even the worst of people act like that. So what?

Jesus challenged the people listening to him to be like God. When the neighbor who never returns your stuff asks to borrow your rake, Jesus said that you have to let him have it. And you need to do it expecting that he won’t give it back. In fact, any lending, of money or property, is to be done in the expectation of being ripped off. And you’re supposed to be good with that. Because that’s the way God treats us all the time. Mercy takes the place of judgment—and of justice. We shouldn’t give back as good as we get. We should only give back better.

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You know that you have been taught, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you. When someone slaps your right cheek, turn and let that person slap your other cheek. If someone sues you for your shirt, give up your coat as well. If a soldier forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles. When people ask you for something, give it to them. When they want to borrow money, lend it to them.

You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. If you greet only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that? But you must always act like your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:38-48)

Jesus asked for what seems impossible. He asked us to be nice to mean people. “Eye for eye” or “tooth for tooth” are phrases from the Law of Moses known as the lex talionis. That “law of the tooth” was summarized as “do to others as they have done to you.” But the purpose of that old “law of the tooth” wasn’t what most people thought. It was designed to place limits on judicial punishment: a criminal could not be made to suffer more than his victim. But by Jesus’ day, the phrase had become twisted into a justification for vengeance. Jesus explained that sort of thinking missed the whole point of what God was all about.

The way God treats us is how we should treat others. God is good to people who are not good to him or to anyone else. Loving those who love us is easy. God has called us to do something hard: to be like him and to love those who hate us.

God is good to us no matter what. His love is not dependent upon our performance. Jesus wants us to understand that real love is never based on performance. It can’t be earned. And he wants us to treat other people the same way that he treats them—and us. He wants us to love unconditionally.

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I have loved you, just as my Father has loved me. So remain faithful to my love for you. If you obey me, I will keep loving you, just as my Father keeps loving me, because I have obeyed him.

I have told you this to make you as completely happy as I am. Now I tell you to love each other, as I have loved you. The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them. And you are my friends, if you obey me. Servants don’t know what their master is doing, and so I don’t speak to you as my servants. I speak to you as my friends, and I have told you everything that my Father has told me.

You did not choose me. I chose you and sent you out to produce fruit, the kind of fruit that will last. Then my Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name. So I command you to love each other. (John 15:9-17 CEV)

Jesus asked his disciples to be his friends forever. He was going to die for them, as a friend might die to save a buddy in danger. In this case, the danger he would rescue them from was their sins.

He wanted them to understand that they were his friends, not his slaves or royal servants. In contrast, the leader of the Roman Empire, the Caesar, was hailed as a god. All the people in the Empire were his servants. In fact, each year every person in the Empire was supposed to perform a sacrifice and announce, “Caesar is Lord!” Only Jews were exempt from this duty, because the Greek word for Lord was the same Greek word that the most widely read translation of the Bible used for God’s name. No Jew could call Caesar by that word. Then Jesus, God himself, the creator of the heavens and earth, declared to his followers that they were not his slaves. Slaves don’t need to understand anything; all they have to do is obey their orders. But friends do what they’re asked to do because they understand and because they love each other. Jesus wanted his disciples to realize that their relationship with God was not like the relationship between a master and his slaves. Unlike Caesar, the true God called his disciples his friends and asked for but one thing: that they love each other.

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But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:

This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.

Go and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: I have given heed to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt. (Exodus 3:11-16)

Moses and the Israelites in Egypt lived in a world filled with many gods and goddesses. That there was but one God was something that they only gradually comprehended. Therefore, at the beginning of their relationship, when God first appeared to Moses, it was only natural that Moses should wonder about the name of the God he was standing before. He accepted that this was the same God that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had worshipped, but he wanted a name to bring back to the people. Names were considered important because they gave you power: if someone calls your name, you respond to it, you look up, you see who it is that used your name. Moses wanted that with God.

God was amazed by Moses’ question, since it showed God how little Moses really understood. Names are necessary when there are many examples of something: for instance, there are a lot of human beings. Names keep us from becoming confused. But what need had God of a name? He’s all there is, the only God. Therefore, he responded, “I Am that I Am.” How else could he answer that question? So Moses went back to the Israelites and told them that “He Is” has sent me. The Hebrew pronunciation of that phrase is “Yahweh,” which is sometimes rendered in English as “Jehovah.”

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Thus says the LORD,
“Where is the certificate of divorce
By which I have sent your mother away?
Or to whom of My creditors did I sell you?
Behold, you were sold for your iniquities,
And for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
“Why was there no man when I came?
When I called, why was there none to answer?
Is My hand so short that it cannot ransom?
Or have I no power to deliver?
Behold, I dry up the sea with My rebuke,
I make the rivers a wilderness;
Their fish stink for lack of water
And die of thirst.
“I clothe the heavens with blackness
And make sackcloth their covering.” (Isaiah 50:1-3)

If you’re in time out you probably know why you’re there. In the midst of their punishment, the Israelites had started to think that God had abandoned them forever. God asked them a series of pointed questions to let them know that there was a good reason for their suffering: they were being disciplined.

The break in the relationship between God and Israel was not because God had sent them away, but because they had turned away from him. What part of infidelity did they not get? Were they not paying attention? Were they not listening to the prophets who compared Israel to an adulterous wife chasing after other men in her insatiable lust? They were in the mess they were in, far from God, because they had put themselves there. They had done all of this on their own.

But, to imagine that God was unable to save his people regardless of the mess they had created for themselves, was just as silly. He reminded them of past care –when they had faced the impossible and God had come through for them. Drying up the sea references the Red Sea crossing by Moses and the Israelites. Turning rivers into a wilderness likely refers to the time when the Israelites, under Joshua, crossed the blocked up Jordan River to go conquer the Promised Land. There was nothing that was too hard for the God who made everything and keeps the universe functioning. Even though the ancient Israelites had but a limited understanding of how big the universe was, or how it worked, they knew enough to recognize that it was far beyond anything that human beings could accomplish. Thus, if their problems were all but human sized, then God, who does God sized things, would find their problems easy to handle. No problem we create, no matter how large it seems to us, is large to God.

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We doubt God, we doubt ourselves, we doubt our friends and family. But faith dwells in the shadow of doubt. The author of Hebrews wrote, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). No faith is needed to accept the money in our wallet, the flat tire already fixed, the illness healed. Yet many of us fear doubt or imagine that it undermines faith rather than recognize it for what it is: the soil in which faith grows. The flip side of doubt is faith. Doubts can be doubted too.

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